


The Weight of Empire

by wishingforatypewriter



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26133229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishingforatypewriter/pseuds/wishingforatypewriter
Summary: A collection of one-shots about the rise and fall of the Great Uniter, her empire, and the man who loved her.
Relationships: Baatar Jr./Kuvira (Avatar)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 93





	1. The Problem of More

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is going to be a compilation of drabbles (mostly Baavira) set between the middle of season three and the end of season four.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year after they restore order in Ba Sing Se, Baatar is reminded that Kuvira is not indestructible.

Baatar had spent the whole day on the train, locked away in his laboratory while Kuvira conducted her negotiations at the governor’s mansion. After weeks of trial and error, he had finally produced a cost-effective water filtration system to install throughout the rural provinces. 

Although this smattering of eastern towns and farmsteads would remain a far cry from the elegant modernity of Zaofu, everywhere he and Kuvira went, they brought technology, stability, progress. 

He stepped out of the train car with a self-satisfied smirk, schematics in hand. “Captain,” he said once he spotted one of his subordinates. “Send a team to install my new devices in the wells throughout the province.” 

The captain, a tall young man who had joined their ranks after the Omashu campaign, wore an uncomfortable expression. “Actually, sir, we’ve received orders to put a stay on all humanitarian aid until the perpetrators of this afternoon’s attack are in custody.”

Baatar’s eyes narrowed. “What attack?”

The captain flinched at his tone, likely resenting that he was the one stuck delivering this news. “During her meeting at the governor’s mansion, one of the remaining anarchist cells made an attempt on the general’s life.” 

A feeling of helpless panic came over Baatar, one he hadn’t had to contend with since the early days of their march on Ba Sing Se. They were supposed to be beyond this now—too righteous, too powerful. It took him a moment to find his voice. “Was she hurt?”

“She’s in stable condition after the blood transfusion, and has retired to her rooms, sir. A fortunate outcome, considering the size of the bomb.” 

A bomb? Someone had tried to kill Kuvira with a fucking bomb and he’d been messing around with water filters? “Why was I not notified at once?” 

The other man lowered his eyes as Baatar’s tone conveyed thinly veiled fury. “She made it clear that your work in the lab was not to be disturbed over a matter so trivial,” he explained. “Her words, sir,” the man added after reading the murderous intent in Baatar’s posture.

She would say that, wouldn’t she? Baatar held the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He wondered, not for the first time, how his girlfriend had made it this long with her nonexistent sense of self-preservation. “You’re dismissed, captain.” 

He found Kuvira sitting at her desk, steadfastly reading over a stack of documents by lamplight. Bandages were wrapped up and down her torso, and she looked pale and anemic even from the doorway.

“Kuvira.” He sighed, shutting the door behind him. He should have been at her side hours ago. “How are you feeling?”

“Don’t start, Baatar,” she said without looking up from her paperwork. 

“Love, you should be resting,” he said, starting anyway. Anyone else would have gotten a strip of metal to the mouth at this point, but she only rolled her eyes at him. 

“I am resting,” Kuvira replied. “Normally I’d be out serving justice to the dissidents behind this attack. The Earth Kingdom will never prosper while such lawlessness is allowed to go unchecked!” 

It seemed like she was going to say more, but a hand suddenly flew to her abdomen, her features scrunching up in pain. Baatar was beside her in an instant, rubbing feather-light circles on her back.

“Have you taken anything for the pain?” he asked after a moment. 

She waved him off. “No, I needed a sound mind to draft the new round of treaties. They’re still not done.”

Baatar said nothing, but wondered how she would react if he had the whole medical team dismissed for their incompetence. He kissed the top of her head with the utmost tenderness, and to his great relief, the gesture seemed to bring some of the color back to her face. “I’ll have them send something up now.”

She glared at him, though the look didn’t contain even half of her usual steel. “I _just_ told you I have work to finish.” 

“You can finish tomorrow,” he told her. “For now you need to relax.”

In the end, she relented more quickly than Baatar expected—either because it struck her fancy to humor him that day or she felt far worse than she was letting on. Probably both, knowing her. 

As that fool Varrick might say, she allowed him to do the things—take the pins out of her hair and carry her to bed and bring ice packs for her ribs. The drug the medic gave Kuvira—about six hours too late by Baatar’s count—had her drifting off in minutes. 

“Don’t let me oversleep,” she said sternly. “I have a briefing scheduled for 7 am tomorrow.” 

“I’m not waking you up.” He gently brushed a few stray strands of hair off her face. “And I hope you sleep past noon.”

Kuvira made an indignant noise at the back of her throat. “You’re useless.” 

He took her hand then, and squeezed it lightly. “I love you.” 

“I’d gathered that.” There was a small smile on her lips as she interlaced their fingers. “Did you finally figure out what to do about the wells?” 

Baatar had meant to answer her question—truly, he had—but what came out instead was “Why didn’t you send for me after it happened?”

She sighed. “Because you would have spent the whole day fussing over me and neither one of us would have gotten any work done. We need to focus on doing what’s best for the Earth Kingdom.” 

“I love you more than the Earth Kingdom, Kuvira.” 

“I’d gathered that as well,” she told him, stifling a yawn. “You shouldn’t.” 

In the morning Baatar rose at dawn and did not wake her. He went to his lab, locked his plans for humanitarian projects away in a desk drawer, and designed a tank. Clean water and electricity would be good for the earth peasants, but a tank or a drone might keep Kuvira safe. 

And he had always loved her more.


	2. Business and Pleasure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuvira and Baatar plot (and argue) at Zaofu in the middle of the night.

The domes had long since shut out the sky at Zaofu. Most of the city’s residents were in bed, cocooned in their privilege and apathetic to the plight of the rest of the Earth Kingdom. But Kuvira was awake, standing shoulder to shoulder with Baatar in his father’s workshop, with a large map of the nation spread over an imposing desk of mahogany wood. 

“The airships are climate controlled, but we’ll need to insulate the tents if we want to survive the winter,” Baatar said as he reviewed the plans. “Or perhaps we can use a portable convection heater of some sort. Taking Hiroshi Sato’s engine as precedent, one might…” 

The rest of what he said went straight over Kuvira’s head, and she watched, half awed and half annoyed, as he sketched a prototype in the margins of her war map. 

She leaned in closer to look at it, astounded — as she had been on and off since childhood — at the things his mind could do. His talents were truly wasted on his parents’ shallow whims. “Can you make them before we leave?”

“Probably. I’ll finish on the way to Ba Sing Se if need be.” 

Kuvira gave a satisfied nod, ready to launch into the topic of supply lines, when it hit her. She paused, tilting her head up to glance at him quizzically. There had not always been such a significant height difference between them, and sometimes she hated it. 

“On the way?” she repeated, quirking an eyebrow skyward. “Baatar...you don’t actually think you’re coming, do you?” 

Now it was Baatar’s turn to look confused. “Of course I’m coming,” he said. “We’re partners.” 

Kuvira sighed, turning her gaze back to the map. It was late, and she was tired, and she’d be swayed by his kicked-puppy look if she wasn’t careful. “In the planning, yes. But you can’t come to Ba Sing Se. You’d be captured or killed or—”

“Because I’m a nonbender?” 

Kuvira looked him up and down in his long kaftan shirt and metal man jewelry. Smart and helpful though he was, a sheltered brainiac from a rich family would be a sitting turtleduck out on the front lines. “Among other things.” 

“And I’m supposed to just sit here, designing and redesigning that damn tram station for my dad, while you risk your life on the other side of the country—not knowing if you’re alive or dead or hurt somewhere?” Baatar started pacing towards the ending of this monologue, likely imagining a host of horrible fates that might befall her if he wasn’t around to talk politics and doodle inventions in the margins of her maps.

Kuvira shook her head slightly; he was utterly ridiculous. “Now you’re getting it.” 

“Kuvira, you’re not making sense.” He reached out and touched her arm then, and she felt a rush of warmth that couldn’t quite be accounted for. “You know I can help you.”

“You have.” She shrugged away from his touch, but the warm feeling lingered on her skin and far beyond it. “And you’re likely to do so again if you remain alive, which is why you are staying here in Zaofu!” 

“You’re talking as though your entire team is just elite metalbenders. I mean, you’re bringing Varick, of all people!” 

She waved him off. “Varrick’s expendable.”

“And what makes me any different?" he asked. "Isn’t your whole argument that we should all be willing to die for the Earth Kingdom if need be?”

Kuvira was caught in the unenviable position of trying to answer this question without owning up to truths long denied when she felt a familiar vibration through the sleek metal tiles—the groggy late night footsteps of a middle aged man. With speed and agility stemming from her years of training, Kuvira flipped the map over and sat atop the desk, bending Baatar flush against her through the metal in his necklace. 

“Kuvira, what on earth—”

She silenced him with her lips, locking her legs around his waist. Baatar surprised her, reciprocating the kiss with passion. He parted her lips with his tongue and lost his fingers in her mass of hair. She had not expected him to know what he was doing. 

This was the scene Baatar Sr. came across when he opened the door to his study. He cleared his throat, after which the young adults parted—Kuvira feigning mortification and his son feeling it organically. 

“Ah, Junior. Kuvira,” the man said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head. “I’d just had another breakthrough on the tram station, but…” He looked at the young people again. “But I suppose that can wait until tomorrow. Good night, kids.”

“That was too close,” Kuvira said, once Baatar Sr. was gone. “We’ll have to start meeting in a more secure location. What do you think about the guard tower?”

There was no response from the younger Baatar, who was staring blankly into space. Kuvira watched him and blinked once. Twice. Did she break him? 

When Kuvira opened her mouth to speak again, he kissed her once more, and she felt all her authoritative commands and logical arguments coming loose and floating up into the ether. 

Oh, what the hell, she decided when she was back up on the desk with Baatar’s lips on her neck. She could protect him. She was one of the greatest metalbenders in the world, after all.


	3. Earning Credentials

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Baatar isn't sure if he's Kuvira's boyfriend, but plays the role anyway.

Baatar had spent some time in Ba Sing Se when he was eighteen, though after what he’d seen during the campaign, it felt like a lifetime ago. He’d accompanied his father while he gave a series of lectures at the university’s architecture department, and then stayed behind for a summer term, studying under some of the world’s leading engineering scholars. 

He didn’t remember much of the visit outside of work and endless hours holed up in the library. There had been a few nights out with his classmates, and a date or two with a dance student from the Northern Water Tribe he’d entertained to try—albeit unsuccessfully—and stop pining after his childhood crush. But it was mostly just work. 

After they stabilized the city, he’d been lucky enough to find two of his former classmates, who’d become prominent civil engineers after completing their studies. He now sat alongside them in The Jasmine Dragon—which was among the first wave of establishments back up and running—sharing his plans for the reconstruction of the city. 

One of them, a woman named Li Na who’d grown up in the upper ring, studied the drawings with a pensive frown. “I love the updated rail system,” she said. “The manual lines were so last century. But what happened to the rings? I only see plans for restoring the outer wall.” 

“Kuvira hates the rings,” he said, recalling the sharp words she’d exchanged with the few remaining ministers in the city after she started moving the displaced lower ring residents into vacant houses in the middle ring. “Their maintenance is a drain on the public works funds and they perpetuate inequality. Any Earth Kingdom citizen should be able to move through the city freely.”

“Right on, man,” said Qi from Omashu, who he’d probably convince to join their budding corps of engineers in a month or so. “Your girlfriend has some pretty cool ideas.”

Baatar felt his ears heating up, and willed the embarrassment not to show on his face. He had made out with Kuvira a few times before they left Zaofu, and once or twice very early in the campaign, but he wasn’t quite sure that really gave him boyfriend credentials. He cleared his throat, shuffling the papers laid out on the table. “Actually, we’re really just childhood friends—”

“So she’s single, then?” Qi raised his eyebrows curiously. “I might have to—”

“No.” Baatar said this too quickly and with far too much venom for anyone at the table to miss the fact that he was steeped in likely unrequited love for her. 

Li Na giggled behind her hand and Baatar wanted to evaporate like the steam wafting out of his cup. “Figure your life out, Baatar,” she said. “But let me know when you’re ready to get started. My parents are squandering the family fortune running up hotel bills in Republic City.” 

Before he left the store, Baatar bought an extra oolong tea and a sweet custard bun to go, just in case she hadn’t eaten. He then got in his satomobile—one of the armored dark green jeeps he and Varrick designed for the campaign—and drove down to the lower ring. The chaos in the poorer districts had largely dissipated as Kuvira’s justice fell over the city with the winter frost, but he knew she had every intention of leaving the slums better than she found them. 

He spotted Kuvira at the center of the relief stations, giving orders to the food distribution teams and directing refugees towards the medical tents. She moved with grace and precision, as though the endless work to do and decisions to be made were all part of an elaborate dance performance. 

Baatar stood and watched her for a while, a smile growing on his face when she bent down to clean and bandage a cut on a little girl’s ankle because all the medics were occupied. After she was done, the girl wrapped her arms around Kuvira’s neck and stayed that way until she handed her off to Bolin. Despite the rougher elements of her personality, she’d always had a way with children. Wing and Wei adored her from the first—or they had. Until. 

When there was finally a lull in the onslaught of people in need of her attention, Baatar approached her. Kuvira’s hair was unbound and hung loose down her back—more likely than not to protect her ears from the winter wind—and a few snowflakes were tangled in her long tresses and dark eyelashes. She regarded him with a subtly pleased look that sent his thoughts scattering like a sheaf of papers in an airbender training session. 

He handed her the cup of tea and paper to-go bag without preamble, and her expression broadened into a full-on smile. “How did you know I skipped breakfast?”

Baatar adjusted his glasses, hoping she assumed his red face was only because of the chill. “Just probability. As a rule, you take terrible care of yourself when you’re occupied with something.” 

She’d gotten this way after she was first promoted to captain of the Zaofu guard and when she became a principal dancer in his mother’s company, but now her propensity for overwork had reached new heights. 

Kuvira glared at him. “The state of the Earth Kingdom—”

“Cannot be changed in the time it takes to eat something, and we both know it.”

The glare persisted, but she chose not to argue further. She fished the custard bun out of the bag and took a bite. 

“What did your school friends say?” she asked after a moment, her voice laced with a hint of teasing most people wouldn’t be able to detect. 

“They think it’s possible, and they’re willing to help,” he told her. “We should be able to begin work on the new roads within the week.”

Kuvira nodded. “Good. We need Ba Sing Se running normally again so it can support displaced populations from elsewhere in the northeastern region. My scouts have reported that things have gotten bad with the petty warlords who’ve taken over the mountain towns.” 

Baatar could tell from the set of her jaw that she’d be unable to ignore it. Since coming to Ba Sing Se and seeing the people left most vulnerable by the power vacuum, she’d become obsessively focused on the mission. “You’re sending a team?”

“I’m leading it.”

He supposed he should have assumed that, but had still dared to hope otherwise. “When will you leave?”

“Soon,” she said. “Tomorrow, with any luck. I’m meeting with the security force at noon to discuss the logistics. We should have the plan finalized in a few hours.” 

Baatar glanced at his pocket watch, noting that it was almost a quarter to twelve. “So you were going to skip lunch too?”

“Unimportant,” she said with a dismissive wave, pulling the olive green trench jacket tighter around her as the wind picked up. 

“Untrue,” he retorted. “Do you want a ride back up to the base?” 

“Everyone else has to walk,” she stated, drawing upon her hard-won wisdom in the realm of charismatic authority. 

“Can I walk with you, then?”

“I’m sure you have something more productive that you could be doing with your time,” she said with a pointed look and a half-hidden smile. “But alright.” 

Somewhere between the relief station and the base, Kuvira’s hand ended up in his, and Baatar couldn’t for the life of him tell which of them had started it. 


	4. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late at night, Kuvira returns to the Ba Sing Se estate.

After disembarking from her airship, Kuvira parted from her officers and walked the grounds of the estate. It always helped clear her head after she engaged with the corrupt leaders of failing states. 

Fire-butterflies cast a soft glow over the pond and the dance pavilion. A family of turtleducks grazed languidly on water weeds, and broad metal discs on the training field gleamed in the distance. Baatar had truly spoiled her with this home he designed and built for them in Ba Sing Se. Every other time she came home, Kuvira almost believed she was still on guard duty. 

Once she had bathed and drafted some critical correspondence to her colonels on the western front, Kuvira headed up to her bedroom, where she found her fiance asleep amidst a sea of graph paper and mathematical tools. 

She shook her head at the sight, a ghost of a smile finding its way onto her face. When he hadn’t come to greet her at the hangar, she had assumed he would be locked away in his workshop on the precipice of a breakthrough. But somehow she liked this better.

Baatar’s glasses were slightly askew and half-sliding down his nose, and there was still a mechanical pencil clutched in his right hand. This man had spent years lecturing her about overwork, and now look at him. Such hypocrisy. If there were a camera on hand, she would have definitely taken a picture. 

With silent footsteps, Kuvira went over to the bed and removed his glasses, placing them carefully on the nightstand. She smirked a bit after seeing the small indentations they had left on the bridge of his nose, and then set to work creating a space for her to sleep. She gathered the models and schematics, binding them with paperclips placing them on the end table. Then, in one of her lazier feats in metalbending, she lifted the ruler, compass, protractor, and scale and shoved them unceremoniously under the bed. 

When it was finally possible to lie down without turning his work into the world’s roughest top sheet, she got under the covers. After a moment’s hesitation, she pressed a kiss against her fiance’s forehead, cheeks flushing bright red when his eyes blinked open. 

“So you felt that, but not the protractor stabbing you in the side?” she grumbled. 

Baatar ignored this and snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her against him. “You’re home,” he said quietly, leaving a kiss on the patch of skin just below her ear. 

Kuvira felt the stress of the week melt away as she rested her forehead against his chest. When had Zaofu stopped being home for them, and when had a week become this long?

“Don’t get comfortable,” she said, glancing up at him with a stern expression. “I’m leaving for the Omashu base tomorrow.” 

Baatar said nothing in response, but kissed her again, right between her eyes, and she knew that she would stay another night. She sighed and bent the light switch down, hoping he wouldn’t read the defeat on her face. 


	5. The Feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A feast is thrown in Kuvira's honor, and she gets very drunk.

**Chapter 5: The Feast**

“I can see the headlines now!” Kuvira heard Varrick’s voice booming from across the low table. Their hosts—the residents of a northern coastal village that had been devastated by sea raiders in the months after the earth queen’s death—were hanging on his every word. “Brilliant filmmaker smashes box office with latest blockbuster, _ Nuktuk and the Pirate King _ ! Zhu Li, write this down!” 

Varrick’s assistant looked rather content with her tentacle stew, but still took out a notepad and started scribbling. “Sir, you do know that it was Kuvira who defeated the pirate king, not Bolin?” 

“Zhu Li, you’re a genius! The Nuktuk franchise needs a strong heroine to expand our viewer base, and we already know a metalbender with a background in the performing arts.” The eccentric businessman cast his gaze on her.  _ Oh, spirits no.  _ “Say, Kuvira—”

“Absolutely not,” she said firmly. 

Varrick seemed poised to argue for a moment, but after she pinned him under her glare, he thought better of it and offered the role to her former dance partner, who was seated across from him. 

“For what it’s worth, I think you’d make a great mover star,” Baatar said with an edge of teasing in his voice. 

She made a small indignant noise and then took a sip of the warm sake the village chief kept pouring in her cup. By this point in the campaign, Kuvira had had a few feasts thrown in her honor, but no host had ever been this hellbent on getting her drunk before.

“You’re biased,” she told him, draining her cup against her better judgment and allowing it to be refilled, “and possibly psychotic.” 

The matrons of the town soon brought more dishes into the longhouse—roast duck and flipper pie, fried dough and pickled kelp, barbecue pork ribs so tender they slid off the bone and lobster-crabs practically swimming in butter. It was like a collection of all the rich and hearty provincial dishes that Suyin had dubbed unstylish and effectively banned from her kitchens in Zaofu. 

As though reading her thoughts, Baatar glanced at her and smirked. “Aren’t you glad there’s no kale here?”

She laughed a little, watching as some grandmother stacked his plate high with pork and lobster-crab, bemoaning how thin he was. “If they think you’re skinny now, they should have seen you back in Zaofu.”

This made Baatar flush, and earned a chuckle from Qi—one of his engineering friends they’d picked up back in Ba Sing Se. Progressive, funny, and overly familiar, Qi had been pressing her to go into the details of her fight with the pirates all evening, and after the chief refilled her cup for the umpteenth time, he finally convinced her to do it. 

By the time she reached the part where she had pinned the self-styled pirate king to the mast of his flagship with his own sword, the entire table was leaning forward in anticipation and Bolin had gotten up to act out several scenes. 

They all cheered at the end, raising their cups in awe of her, and she simply felt compelled to drink along with them.

By the time dessert was served, the world had slowed and the heat of the hearth seemed to seep into Kuvira’s skin. She picked at a custard tart and then let her head droop until it rested on Baatar’s shoulder. He curled an arm around her waist without missing a beat in his conversation with Qi about the Northern Water Tribe influences on the local architecture. 

She was usually more careful than this; they tried to keep it professional while on campaign. But almost everyone who came with them this time either knew they were together, or suspected it anyway.

After snippets of conversation about igloo domes and moon motifs that she only followed partway, Kuvira heard Baatar say, “No, she’s done for the night, I think. I should take her to bed.” 

Qi then made an innuendo that made Kuvira seal his mouth shut with a fine strip of metal from the band on her wrist, even though he was probably right. 

Baatar glanced down at her with a familiar fondness in his deep green eyes. “So you’re awake, then?”

“I’m not drunk, you know,” she said, the words heavy in her mouth. “Just really tired.”

Baatar looked unconvinced, but simply brought the back of her hand up to his lips. “Well, fighting pirate kings will do that to you, love.” 

“I like when you call me that,” she told him without even the remotest intention of doing so. 

“I know. But a sober Kuvira would not have admitted that.” He ran his thumbs over her knuckles gently—always gently. Since the time they’d met, she’d been as tough and durable as the metal she wielded, so how had he gotten it in his head to treat her like porcelain and colored glass? “Are you ready to leave?”

Kuvira glanced around the room. The chief and his wife were laughing with Varrick and Bolin by the hearth, while Zhu Li thwarted her employer’s attempts to drink any more than he already had. Qi had gotten one of the metalbenders from Zaofu to remove his muzzle, and they had started making out in a corner at some point. The evening seemed to be winding down nicely; better to leave before it got ruined somehow. 

She finally nodded lazily. “Let’s go.”

Kuvira knew they were still in the Earth Kingdom, but outside the lights from the North Pole’s spirit portal painted the night sky with elegant stripes of green and pink and purple. 

She paused in front of the longhouse, gazing up at them in wonder. After a moment, she felt Baatar’s arms around her middle. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? To think we would have spent our whole lives hidden underneath those domes.”

“Never again,” she told him. “Even after all of this is over, we won’t go back.” 

He left a kiss on her right temple, and Kuvira let herself lean back into him. “I’ll build a house in Ba Sing Se, and when the train line is finished, it’ll only take us two hours to get here.” 

She turned around then and kissed him, extending the metal heels on her boots to raise her up a few crucial inches. It left him stunned, as always. “Make it faster than that,” she said when they finally parted. “We need efficiency.” 

And then she let him carry her up to bed for efficiency’s sake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I understand logically that this is not a fluffy ship, but I really couldn't help myself this time. Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy this and have a good day/evening/night!


	6. The Four Elements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the eve of Prince Wu's coronation day, Kuvira tries to be productive and Baatar does not let her.

The presidential suite at the Republic City Four Elements was equipped with a hot tub, a sauna, a well-stocked open bar, and a television that was roughly the size of a mover screen...and Baatar’s  fiancée was _still_ sitting behind a desk with a stack of paperwork the size of a baby moose lion in front of her. 

Kuvira was wrapped in a plush Four Elements robe, feet propped up on a red and gold ottoman as she filled her pages. Another person—one who didn’t know her quite so well—would make the mistake of assuming she was feeling rather relaxed. But Baatar could read the displeasure in her posture, the carefully restrained aggression in each precise stroke of pen against parchment. 

Her correspondence never made that scratching noise when she wasn’t royally pissed off. 

“How was the prince?” he ventured, although he would bet all the gold in Gaoling that he already knew the answer. 

“That child is lucky to still be breathing,” she said dryly. “If I had any doubts about our plan before, they’re gone now.”

“Did you?” he asked, before he could think better of it. 

“Did I what?”

“Have doubts.” The plan had always seemed like a plain inevitability. Black and white. Kingdom to Empire. 

Kuvira sighed, bringing two fingers up to the middle of her forehead in a familiar gesture of fatigue. “It wouldn’t matter if I did.” She used the pen to gesture at a folder on the far side of the desk, dark green with the insignia of the nascent Earth Empire stamped on the front cover. Inside were files on a number of Republic City business leaders and minor bureaucrats. 

“What’s this?”

“Wu’s cabinet, handpicked by President Raiko to turn the Earth Kingdom into a vassal state of the UR, while the prince empties the national treasury throwing parties and buying fancy scarves.”

“It was a nice scarf, wasn’t it?”

She gave a small hum of consideration, conceding the point. “Better still as a garrote, if you asked me,” she replied with a wry smile. “But anyway, it seems we’re doing this.” 

She went back to her writing then, drafting marching orders for the officers in Omashu and Gaoling. If all went according to plan, they would take Zaofu in a month’s time.

Wordlessly, knowingly, Baatar moved behind his fiancée and started massaging her shoulders, working out the knots and tension in the same way he would approach a complex algorithm. 

Kuvira gave a little sigh and tilted her head back, dropping the pen and gazing up at him with an expression suspended halfway between appreciation and crossness. “You are the antithesis of productivity, you know,” she said. Then after a beat, “Don’t stop, though.” 

Baatar then left a kiss on the patch of skin where neck and shoulder met. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

* * *

“Do you want to order room service?” Kuvira asked much later on, after Baatar had convinced her to stop working and share a bottle of obscenely expensive champagne in the hot tub. 

Her voice was muffled by the fourteen pillows and cushions arranged artfully on the king bed, but he still managed to make her words out. “I thought we could go out instead.”

She lifted her head slightly, and pulled a face that signaled she found the notion of setting foot outside the suite before the coronation unsavory. “Out?”

“It would be helpful to do some reconnaissance in the city ahead of the Yu Dao campaign,” he pointed out. “Besides, I can’t remember the last time we went out on a real date.” 

Kuvira groaned, emerging from the plush bedding that had all but swallowed her up. She stretched languidly, hair sticking up at all angles and robe sliding further down her right shoulder. The fearsome general looked rightly adorable, but by now Baatar knew better than to say as much. 

“Alright, fine.” She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to tame it a bit. “Where are we going?”

“The concierge got us a table at Kwong’s Cuisine. Bolin says it’s one of the nicest restaurants in town.” 

Kuvira made an unimpressed noise. “Bolin would eat polar bear dog food if he was hungry enough, and you know it.”

That was...true. Just true. What was his sister even doing with that guy? “Still, it’s got to be better than the refectory.”

“You’re not wrong,” she admitted, stretching again. “Okay. I’m getting up.”

* * *

“You’re lucky we came here from Gaoling,” Kuvira said as she stepped out of the dressing room, clad in an emerald gown with a slit up one side and a skirt that brushed the floor when she walked. She also traded her practical military gloves for a pair of evening gloves that went up to her elbows. “If we had left from the Omashu base, I wouldn’t have any of this shit.” 

In fact, she probably still wouldn’t have brought any formal attire had the household staff—many of whom had been serving Baatar’s family since before either of them were born—not insisted that “Lady Poppy would roll in her grave” if her future great-granddaughter-in-law left for Yu Dao without her pearls.

Kuvira walked over to the vanity, where the pearls in question sat on a neck mannequin that reminded her more of a severed head than anything else. 

The necklace was a double strand of Yokoya pearls, held together with a round white gold clasp fashioned into the insignia of the flying boar. It was the type of piece that the woman who gave birth to her would try to approximate with her cheap costume jewelry. Kuvira blinked at her reflection after the heirloom was clasped in place around her neck, wondering—as she did every so often—how in the name of Oma and Shu she had ended up here. 

“Are you sure Su doesn’t want this?” she asked, turning back to her fiance, who was fastening a pair of silver cufflinks. 

“Positive. She must have a hundred pieces of jewelry from her grandmother, but wears exactly two because ‘the rest are too old fashioned.’”

Kuvira shook her head as she stepped into her black heels and fastened them at the ankles. “Oh, Suyin,” she said dryly. “You spoke to her earlier, didn’t you?”

“I did.” 

“How is she?”

“She...is.” Baatar crossed the distance between them and kissed her before she could ask anything else. “You look gorgeous, Kuvira.” 

“I look hungry,” she said with a glare, but still took his hand when he offered it. “If the food at this place isn’t any good, we’re fighting.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone! I kind of have an idea for a follow up chapter with Baavira exploring Republic City. Would y'all be into that?


	7. In Harmony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuvira and Baatar teach the troops how to play proper pai sho.

It was a chilly, disgusting afternoon—exactly the type that inspired lethargy in those without discipline. The United Earth Army had been camping in the wetlands for two days now, awaiting news from their scouts, and it hadn't stopped raining since the moment they arrived. Kuvira gave an annoyed huff as her newly polished boots sunk calf-deep into the mud. With a flick of her wrist, she created a path of dry earth leading all the way back to her tent. 

She had crossed through half the camp when she heard what sounded like a heated debate coming from the direction of the canteen. Somewhat intrigued, and more than ready to start barking orders, she stuck her head inside. 

Bolin and a cluster of the new recruits were bent over a pai sho board, arguing over what had to be the most atrocious play she’d ever seen. 

“Bolin,” she said sternly. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, hey Kuvira.” He straightened his posture immediately and gave a salute, followed by a little wave. “I’m just welcoming the recruits like you said. You know, nothing builds rapport like an exciting game of chance.” 

Kuvira sighed, crossing her arms. “Bolin, you’re an officer, now. This is supposed to be the most formidable army in the modern world.  _ Please _ tell me you’re not still playing street pai sho.” 

He regarded her with a guilty smile. “Ahhh...Asami tried to teach me the other version a year ago, but it didn’t really stick.”

Kuvira merely shook her head and took a seat at the head of the table. Every day she became more convinced that leadership was just the work of herding crococats into formation. She glanced at the recruits. “Watch closely,” she ordered. “Pai sho is a general’s game. It’s all about military strategy, and if you can master it, you’ll go far in this line of work.” 

The men and women, all of them around Bolin’s age, nodded eagerly and leaned in closer as she reset the pieces. 

“The object of the game is to create stability in your own camp and discord in your opponent’s. This goal should be at the forefront of your mind, even during the first move.” 

The progress was slow going. It took nearly an hour for Bolin not to get completely pummeled within the first ten moves. In this latest match, the lavabender had done well so far, preventing Kuvira from claiming an early victory through a series of defensive moves typical in the Earth Kingdom style of play. 

Still, he was quickly running out of options on the board. Kuvira was certain she’d have him beaten in two moves when her fiance came into the tent, dripping wet and looking generally displeased with the conditions outside. 

“Is this where you’ve been all this time?” he asked, shooting an incredulous glance her way.

“It’s tactical training,” Kuvira said with a shrug. “Sharp-minded soldiers make better decisions on the field.”

Baatar glanced down at the board, and then shook his head in an utterly judgmental manner. “Bolin, if you move that white lily tile, you’re finished in four moves.”

“I am?” Bolin asked, drawing his hand back from the piece as though it were on fire. 

“Four? He’s done in two,” Kuvira said. 

Baatar took a moment to clean his glasses with the end of his shirt, then peered at the board again. “Yes, you’re right.”

“She is?” Bolin glanced between the two of them, and then fumbled with his remaining pieces. “Well, maybe if I move my jasmine out of the gate—”

“She’ll advance her rose tile on the next turn and capture it,” Baatar explained. “Then she’s free to close her harmony ring on your side of the board.”

Bolin gaped at the pieces on the board as he visualized the next few moves, the infantry recruits chatting nervously among themselves as they did the same. “There’s no way out of this, is there? Is it really over?” 

“Calm down, Bolin. All you need to do is play the wheel.”

“The wheel?” 

Kuvira sighed as her fiance reached for the piece. “You’re just going to confuse them.” Earlier, they had spent fifteen minutes just going over the basic flower pieces. 

“The best way to learn is by doing,” Baatar said as he placed Bolin’s wheel piece, causing every tile around it to shift one space clockwise—including Kuvira’s rose. “Now you can get on the offensive.” 

“I...can?” Bolin was likely still trying to process where everything had moved. 

While Baatar tried to explain the significance of the move, Kuvira watched him, thinking back to rainy afternoons in Zaofu when they’d sip tea and play speed matches against one another because her training got cancelled and his father was caught up in some grandmaster-level game against Aiwei and wouldn’t miss him in the workshop. 

“Kuvira,” Baatar said, pulling her out of the fond memories. He must have known what she was thinking because she caught a flash of nostalgia in his grey-green eyes. “It’s your move.”

She put her chrysanthemum in pursuit of the opponent lily, forsaking the rose tile entirely. 

“You and your red gambits.” He shook his head at the play, which had foiled his plans for going on the offensive, but his voice was laced with affection. 

“You should know to expect them by now," she replied with a smirk that bordered on flirtatious before she remembered that they were in mixed company and at war, not back at home playing games over a shared moon peach tart. 

He captured her rose with the jasmine, and she countered by neutralizing it with a knotweed tile. By this point, the match had gone far beyond the scope of Bolin and the other spectators. 

“Uh...maybe you two should just play,” the lavabender suggested, getting up from his place at the table. “I’ll just be over here.”

The match went on for another forty minutes. More and more soldiers poured into the tent to watch, and at some point Varrick started taking bets on who would win. Kuvira would have to scold him for that later. Having such a high-ranking official encouraging gambling and rowdiness was unseemly. But if she took the time to put a stop to it now, she’d lose her focus and slip up. And there was no way she was losing in front of her army. 

In the end she managed to eek out a win—putting some cash into the pockets of Bolin and the other attendees smart enough not to bet against her—and then ordered all present to get back to their regular duties. 

“It’s still disgusting out,” Kuvira said, mostly to herself, as she stepped out of the canteen. Baatar held the door for her as always, even though she could have bent it open. 

“You’re the only earthbender I know who hates mud this much,” he noted, falling into stride beside her. “You’ll be happy to know we were able to get the water boilers going so—”

“So hot showers.” Her heart lifted a bit as she said the words, but she did all she could to remain professional. She cleared her throat. “Is that really the best use of our resources right now?”

“Statistically speaking, it is.” He leaned down and kissed her once he was sure no one was watching. “The army does better when you’re not miserable.” 

Kuvira sighed deeply. There he went again, bending the rules for the sake of her creature comforts. “You—”

“Love me for this,” he said, smirking. “And I love you, too, Kuvira—even when you beat my ass at pai sho in front of the whole corps of engineers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rules of pai sho (at least what I found online) are kind of confusing, but I tried my best lol. 
> 
> Happy new year, Baavira community! Thanks for reading, and if y'all have any prompts or requests, please let me know!


	8. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In truth, Baatar had only hated her for about an hour." 
> 
> or 
> 
> Being broken up is not easy for these two.

In truth, Baatar had only hated her for about an hour. After the spirit portal went up and everyone seemed convinced that she and the avatar had been vaporized by the blast, he despised Kuvira for leaving him to mourn her — as he had always feared she would — mere hours after she tried to kill him. 

Once he had learned that she was in fact still breathing — his mother wouldn't mention Kuvira at all, but Aunt Lin eventually told him — he felt a range of things. There was the fury and loss that had been dueling for dominance in him since the factory went down, the confusion and self-doubt and guilt years delayed. But tangled throughout it all like those damnable spirit vines was a deep sense of relief that confirmed the unthinkable; he still loved her, and likely always would. 

Knowing this, he tried to avoid her — albeit inconsistently, and with varying levels of success — once she was back in Zaofu. It shouldn’t have been hard, really. He had been hyper-aware of her presence since they were children, arranging his schedule around her comings and goings so he’d run into her as often as possible. Never seeing her would require only the most basic level of reverse engineering, but in the end he couldn’t keep it up for more than a few weeks. It just seemed to make her sadder, and brought him no closer to getting over her, at any rate. 

Still, he took some flimsy precautions. When they spoke, he tried not to meet her eyes, knowing that their depths would draw him back into old habits before he could even rationalize an excuse to justify doing so. 

Ironic, then, that now he'd give anything to have her open them again. 

"Junior, you've been here since this morning.” Opal was standing in the doorway of Kuvira's room, arms crossed over her chest. 

"I'm just making sure she's safe." Baatar followed his sister's incredulous gaze to his hand, which had been holding his former fiancee’s since the healer left.

"There's a guard posted right outside the door," she said. 

"We don't know who poisoned her. It could have been that guard for all you know."

She made a face that let him know exactly what she thought of that theory. "I guess it wouldn't be the first time the security force turned on us."

"Opal—"

"Okay. I get it. You're staying," she said, her tone drenched in judgment. "Just...be careful."

“I will.”

Opal just sighed, as though he had still somehow failed to meet the very low expectations she had of him. “At least lie better,” she grumbled as the door shut behind her. 

He sat at Kuvira’s bedside for another hour, two, each minute that ticked by stretching into an eternity. When she had been hurt before—more times than he cared to remember—there had always been subordinates to shout at, army medics to put pressure on. Now all he could do was watch her in her deathlike stillness until she finally stirred to consciousness. 

"Baatar?" Her voice came out low and hoarse, the way it had often sounded after long days of giving speeches and drilling the infantry soldiers. “What—” She cleared her throat. 

Baatar poured her a glass of water from the jug on the nightstand. Kuvira's arms trembled with the effort of pushing herself up into a sitting position. He did her the courtesy of pretending not to notice as he handed her the glass.

"Thanks," she said, after taking a few slow sips. "What was that, assassination attempt number eight?” 

He couldn’t help but gape at her. “ _Seventeen_ in the past four years. How did you even arrive at eight?” 

She regarded him with a half-smirk. “You know I only count the ones that pose credible threats.” 

This gave Baatar pause. He had no delusions about how close the wolfbat’s bane had come to killing her, but to hear her admit it—even in such an indirect manner—left him even more worried than he’d been before. 

"How do you feel?" He rushed to fluff the pillows and prop them up behind her. “Are you in a lot of pain?”

"I've had worse, as you well know." She leaned back against the pillows, her eyes drawing closed again for a moment. 

Baatar took the glass of water from her and placed it back on the nightstand. “Maybe the healers—”

“We’re in Zaofu,” she said with a short, cutting laugh. “They’ll just prick me with needles and tell me to meditate.”

The joke caught him unawares. That irreverent sense of humor was something he’d missed about her, but there was little room for it in either glory or penance. “At least they’ll give you cactus juice.” 

Her laugh then was softer, breathy. Baatar tucked the blankets around her, making sure her feet—which always seemed to be freezing regardless of the temperature—were covered fully.

She glanced up at him slowly, as though it took a great deal out of her. Her expression could only be described as profoundly tired. "Baatar, what are you doing?"

_What, indeed?_

"You’re shivering,” he said lamely, reaching for a loftier explanation, but finding none to close in on. 

Kuvira sighed deeply, and then raised herself up enough to look him straight in the eye. "You don't have to do any of this. I’ll live, most likely, but even if I don’t, you’re under no obligation to take care of your ex-fiancee.” 

“No obligation?" Utter disbelief washed over him at the notion. "I watch you seize and stop breathing and nearly die in front of me, and you expect me to just go about my day as though nothing happened? Kuvira, we were supposed to be married by now!”

“We were.” She paused then to steady herself, straighten her posture again. “But after what I did—”

“I’m well aware of what you did, but that doesn’t mean I can just flip a switch and stop caring about you!” 

Her eyes grew distant then, as they often did when she was plagued by unpleasant memories. “You can if you try hard enough. People have done it before.”

Baatar understood then, and took her hand before he had a chance to check the reflex. “Kuvira—”

“Don’t,” she said, but made no effort to move her hand away. “You know this just makes it more difficult for either one of us to move on.”

“Whatever happens next is going to be difficult.” He ran a thumb gently over her knuckles. “We can deal with ‘difficult’ after you’ve recovered. For now let me be here for you.”

She shook her head slightly, relenting in her quiet way, and then shifted to raise one end of the blanket in invitation. "If you're staying, you might as well get comfortable," she said. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.” 

“And you’re lucky you haven’t seen a mirror yet.” He got into the bed next to her, making sure to leave a respectable distance between them. A moment later, he felt more than saw her looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “Something the matter?” he asked. 

“You know that isn’t your side of the bed.” 

In the past, when they’d shared quarters, Kuvira has always insisted that she should sleep on whichever side faced the door, in case they were ambushed in the night and she needed to defend them. “I think I’m better situated to keep us safe tonight.”

Kuvira made a little haughty sound deep in her throat, and it took everything in him not to pull her close. “You’re as blind as a badgermole without your glasses. Switch.” 

Baatar groaned, but still got up and made the journey to the other side of the bed. At the very least, she must be on the mend if she was back to giving orders already. 


	9. Strong Foundations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plans to rebuild Ba Sing Se are finished, and Kuvira is nearly rendered speechless.

As her airship glided into the center of Ba Sing Se, Kuvira could spot the teams of benders and builders laying new foundations in the lower ring. She saw the beginnings of the central station that would link the capital to every town and hamlet in the northern Earth Kingdom and the free primary schools in the agrarian zone and the university district. 

Before Kuvira touched down in the queen's hangar—her forces had been using the palace ruins as a temporary base—she caught a glimpse of Bolin and Luli teaching a beginners earthbending lesson to a group of children on the grounds and half a dozen pairs of seniors leaning over pai sho tables in the courtyard. 

She had only been gone for six weeks, leading an elite team of metal guards into the northeast provinces, taking down Red Lotus offshoots and gangs that called themselves new daofei in order to clear a path to the northern ports. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that the construction would already be so far underway. 

After she disembarked, it was slow going. There were the corporals and the lieutenants looking to report on the state of the city, the civilians waiting to thank her for this or that or ask after a loved one last spotted up north, the children eager to show that they had learned to bend rocks into the shape of Avatar Kyoshi.

She took all the attention in stride, trying her best to project the unique mixture of warmth and strength Suyin always exuded when engaging with the citizens of Zaofu. But as she smiled and shook hands and made the hard decisions look easy, Kuvira fought a growing desire to drop everything and head inside the palace. 

When there finally came an appropriate moment for her to extricate herself, the civilians bowed before taking leave of her. She flushed in shock and told them it wasn't necessary; such displays of deference were never made back in Zaofu, and Kuvira wasn’t a noble at any rate. They bowed nonetheless, as they had bowed before monarch after monarch who had done nothing for them. She hoped desperately that if they saw her in this way, as a person to be revered, she would at least be the kind of leader who deserved it. 

Kuvira entered the palace through the south gate, taking a series of right turns until she found the group of suites in the east wing that the engineering corps had turned into their headquarters. The outer rooms looked like a lounge at the university—metalbenders and scholars bent over 3D models of new buildings and diagrams of the sewage systems and water lines. They all nodded politely in her direction, but left her largely undisturbed; it had become embarrassingly clear over the past few months that she only visited the engineers for one reason.

She soon reached the back room where Baatar had set up his office. There were about a dozen books open on and around the desk, which had once belonged to some great minister of the Earth Queen’s. One of the books seemed particularly imperiled by a stainless steel travel mug—which had once belonged to Kuvira—filled with green tea that had probably gone cold hours ago. Wordlessly, she shelved the book and bent the lid of the mug closed. Baatar was so focused on what he was doing that he didn't register his girlfriend’s presence until she was sitting on the edge of the desk, gazing down at the documents. 

"Kuvira, thank the spirits you're safe,” he said at once, making her regret not trying harder to extend her radio signals up in the mountains. "What happened with the bandits and the Red Lotus cells?"

Although she heard the questions, Kuvira couldn't tear her gaze away from the city plans for long enough to answer. 

The rings were gone. The new Ba Sing Se would be a series of interlocking circles that ensured each resident lived within a few miles of a city rail station, a school, and a fresh food market. Acres of land around the palace compound, previously reserved for the private leisure of the royal family, would be repurposed to create public parks and apartment buildings. 

"Baatar, this is brilliant," she said, lightly tracing her fingers across the page—careful not to smudge the graphite. "You're brilliant. I—" Kuvira caught the words that were about to spill out, panicked momentarily under the weight of their truth, and leaned down to kiss him instead. 

Baatar responded in turn, pulling her down from the desk and onto his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face into his collarbone, breathing in the bergamot and charcoal pencil smell of him. 

"I'm glad you like it," he said against the top of her head. "But I can’t take the credit. These are your ideas, Kuvira. I’m just arranging them on a city map.”

At that moment precisely, Kuvira knew Su had been telling the truth—if narcissitically and with needless exaggeration—when she said she knew she would marry her husband on the day he showed her his first sketch of Zaofu. 

Suddenly, all her gilded words that rallied troops and brought investors were falling away like the bricks of the inner wall. “I...It’s wonderful.”

“If everything goes right, the construction will be complete within the year. The new Earth King won’t be able to return to the way things were, even if he wants to.”

Kuvira pulled back to look at him then, a knot of pride and affection catching in the back of her throat. “People are going to live better lives here because of you.”

Baatar gained a bit of a flush, unaccustomed to that level of praise. “Not if I can’t figure out what to do with the power grid.”

“Tomorrow,” she said firmly, resting her hand on his cheek. “Rest now.”

“It’s the middle of the afternoon.”

“And you look like you haven’t slept in days,” she said pointedly. “You probably haven’t been eating properly either.” 

“You are the worst kind of hypocrite, you know,” he said, turning his face to leave a kiss in the center of her palm. 

“Only because I love you,” she said at long last, and the earth did not collapse beneath her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone! Sometimes it's easy to forget that these two probably left Zaofu with nothing but the best intentions and a whole bunch of friends-to-lovers romantic tension. Even though this chapter was pretty light, the tragedy of their arc in book four really hit home with me as I was working on it.


End file.
